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France, Switzerland · 2017
Rated R · 2h 15m
Director Xavier Beauvois
Starring Nathalie Baye, Laura Smet, Iris Bry, Cyril Descours
Genre Drama
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With the advent of World War I, matriarch Madame Hortense, her daughter Solange, and newly hired worker Francine are left by themselves to run their farm in rural France while their men go off to fight. Soon enough, drama starts to bubble up, as the women are visited by both their men and American troops.
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The Guardians is a historical drama that doesn’t lose itself in decorative period detail, a beautifully photographed chronicle of rural existence that refrains from picturesque sentimentality and grinding misery, the usual modes for this kind of film.
RogerEbert.com by Christy Lemire
Part of the allure of The Guardians comes from the casting: The radiant, real-life mother and daughter Baye and Smet play mother and daughter Hortense and Solange.
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
The Guardians, though, is special in a new way. Imagine devoting several years, as Mr. Beauvois did, to making a reflective, bucolic feature that is organized around the themes of community and evolving culture. It’s all too subtle for words, but perfect for moving pictures.
The Hollywood Reporter by Jordan Mintzer
It proves that Beauvois still masters his uniquely classical brand of filmmaking, coaxing strong performances out of veteran Nathalie Baye and newbie Iris Bry, who makes an impressive screen debut.
Slant Magazine by Keith Watson
The film captures the pictorial beauty of old-fashioned farm life, but director Xavier Beauvois is careful not to romanticize hard labor for its own sake.
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
The Guardians is an intimate French epic, elegantly made and quietly emotional, a family story filled with characters whose lives we sink into, feeling the hope, the sadness, the sorrow and the joy right along with those on the screen.
The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo
What starts out as a testament to female fortitude, reminding us that sacrifices were also made on the home front, gradually turns into high-toned soap opera.
Inspired by prize-winning French author Ernest Pérochon’s 1924 novel, director Xavier Beauvois’ emotionally devastating adaptation — which some may find as arduous as the wartime chapter it depicts — dispenses with a fair amount of the suffering to be found in the book, forgoing the contemporary tendency toward gritty, handheld realism in favor of a more timeless, almost painterly aesthetic.
Unassumingly powerful details make The Guardians one of the year’s most affecting love stories.
Screen International by Wendy Ide
Meditative in its pacing, painterly in composition, quietly devastating in its low-key drama, the latest film from Xavier Beauvois shares some of the slow-burning potency of his acclaimed study of religious faith, Of Gods And Men.
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